Life

Ask the Grip: Hill Challenged?

Advice on how to train for a hilly course, on both the bike and the run.

"Coach, I struggle on the hills and I feel like my new plan this year should include a lot of hill training. What do you think?" - Hill Challenged

Dear HC,

Hill training should be part of most training plans, regardless of whether you're racing IRONMAN Lanzarote or something much flatter. It has been my experience, however, that doing a lot of hills in training is not the way to go about it for our sport. If triathlon was a race to the top of a one-mile hill, then by all means we would be doing significant hill training. But triathlon, even for the hilliest courses, is rarely about who wins the race to the top of the hills. Triathlon is a steady state sport. Those who pace themselves well for the duration of the race can maximize their performance.

On the run: Avoid significant hill running until you're about eight weeks out from your race. Incorporate hills similar to the race into your weekly runs, and then substitute some of your speed workouts for hill workouts in the final four weeks. When you do run hills, concentrate on your technique. Try to keep the rhythm going up the hill by shortening your stride, pumping your arms and lifting your knees as you go up the hill. Unless the finish line is at the top of the hill, the idea is to try not to overdo it. You should be able to return to your normal pace and run form at the top of the hill without needing much recovery.

On the bike: The most important thing to manage with regards to hills on the bike is proper gearing. Find out the grade for the hills on your race and practice on something similar. If your cadence is too low (below 40 RPM) and you feel like you are going to stop, it would be a good idea to get more gears. Bikes today can have compact crank sets and even triple chain rings to accommodate even the steepest hills. Having gears allows even the most hill challenged athletes to get up anything without burning their legs out. To improve your hill performance, try something similar to what I suggest on the run training; hills can be ridden anytime in the training cycle, however, as long as one has proper gearing. Add hill interval training to your final weeks so that riding hills on race day at a slower pace will seem very easy.

Over my career as a coach I have seen athletes who live in the flattest areas of the country and have no hills to train on, yet they excel at the hilly races. How is that possible? The answer is your body weight. When a body has to go uphill, the biggest challenge is its own weight. Going fast on a hill is about having the best power to weight ratio. If you are light and you follow a sound training plan to get strong, you can fly up the hills even with very little hill training. Likewise, if you carry extra pounds you can train on the hills year round and still get passed by many on race day. Consult with your coach or trainer about your proper body weight--it may be more important than any hill training.

_______________________

Luis Vargas is co-founder of MarkAllenOnline, the first true online coaching site for triathlon, and lends his expertise to this column on occasion. He is a seven-time finisher of the IRONMAN World Championship with a personal best of 9:34. His personal sports experience, plus being a husband to Kelly and a father of two young triathletes all combine to enable him to help others reach their best.